Notre Dame knocks around LSU, 11-3

Published 7:00 pm Monday, February 19, 2018

BATON ROUGE — A solemn Paul Mainieri tried to point out, somewhat hopefully, that it’s a long season, that a lot can happen.

No secret there.

But if opening weekend was a  preview and not an aberration, it could be very, very long one for his LSU baseball team.

A Notre Dame team that finished below .500 last year left Baton Rouge Sunday with a second-straight lopsided win in an 11-3 rout over LSU’s defending national runners-up.

“It was just a terrible weekend for us,” Mainieri said.

LSU, which had to rally late from a 6-run deficit to win the opening game Friday, lost a season-opening series for the first time since 1999 when Texas won the final two just as the Irish did.

LSU plays a three-game home series with Texas this weekend.

The Tigers, who also play UNO Wednesday, will have a lot to work on between now and then.

“This whole weekend we were totally outclassed,” Mainieri said. “They came down here and took it to us. Conversely, it’s hard for me to find a lot of positive things we did the whole weekend.”

Notre Dame scored its last eight runs with two outs, putting an exclamation point on it with Eric Gigenback’s no-doubter grand slam that capped a 5-run ninth inning.

It was Gigenback’s third home run of the weekend and the last of the 34 hits the Irish managed against the Tigers during the three-day trip while not letting an LSU starting pitcher get through the fifth inning.

Gilgenback had seven RBIs in the game and the slam was his third home run of the weekend.

Mainieri seemed more concerned about the eight walks LSU pitching issued to go along with four hit batters Sunday.

Todd Peterson got the loss, lasting only four innings while giving up three hits and four of the walks walks.

Sunday brought the weekend total to 16 walks and 10 hit batters for LSU pitching.

“It seemed like more,” Mainieri said. “They didn’t need it because they certainly played great, but we gave them an awful lot of free gifts. We have to throw the ball over the plate. There’s no defense for a base on balls.”

Notre Dame, which had only one outdoor practice before heading south to Baton Rouge, also did not make an error the entire weekend.

Not that the Tigers were doing much to put any pressure on the Irish.

Lake Charles’ Jordan twins scored all three of the Tigers’ runs and accounted for three of LSU’s five hits, including Beau Jordan’s second home run of the season to lead off the seventh.

He also scored after a leadoff double in the fifth and Bryce Jordan scored LSU’s first run in the third after a leadoff single.

But the Tigers never could put together a big inning despite several chances.

They eventually loaded the bases with no outs in that fifth, but got only the one run out of it when Beau trotted home on  Nick Webre’s double-play grounder that short-circuited any potential big inning.

Besides, Notre Dame seemed to have all the answers. The Irish used seven pitchers, none of whom gave up more than one hit.

Bryce Jordan’s run in the third gave the Tigers their first early lead of the weekend, 1-0.

But the Irish answered with three runs in the top of fourth, and when LSU cut it to 3-2 in the fifth, Notre Dame put another three-spot on the board in the top of the sixth.